


i don't dance

by Liu



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Dancing, Fake Marriage, M/M, roughly mid-season-01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:08:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8566897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liu/pseuds/Liu
Summary: Ray and Mick pretend they're husbands for a mission. Ray insists on dancing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I found this while rooting through my tumblr, I wrote this quite some time ago for trick-xr-treat on tumblr: the prompt was "Atomick, 'May I have this dance, wife/husband?'". I just thought I'd post it since there's never enough atomwave to go around :D

Mick grumbles under his breath the whole way there, scowling out of the car window at the boring landscape. Ray’s trying to ignore him to soothe his nerves, but it’s not working. Not that he‘s particularly nervous about having to pretend he’s a rich investor – his history as the CEO of Palmer Technologies has prepared him for dazzling and charming and ass-kissing. No; it’s his husband for the night that has Ray’s palms sweating and the back of his neck tingling.

He hasn’t been truly afraid of Mick Rory ever since the man carried him out of the Soviet prison like a sack of potatoes (it was only weeks after that he found out Snart had wanted to leave him there, but the pyro, reluctant to help when Ray was fighting the inmates, refused to escape without him). So Ray’s been… wary, at most, and definitely curious, for quite a while.

Nonetheless, it’s one thing to be curious and quite another to pretend that Mick is his _husband_. If it weren’t for Hunter’s insistence that this was the easiest way to get them both in, Ray would not have agreed. He was reluctant as it were, and Snart’s sneering didn’t help – he was grimacing sourly (enviously) all the while from his hi-tech wheelchair, obviously unhappy about being stuck on the Waverider. Ray has to wonder if Snart would be the one pretending to be married to a pyromaniac right now, had he not managed to get a nasty ankle fracture just last week in 1938.

Honestly, Ray expected Mick to put up more of a fuss. An old-fashioned I’m-not-gay freak-out was a possibility: Ray kind of thought something (or someone) would burn. But no: Mick gave him a curious once-over and shrugged, like it didn’t matter at all that Ray’s no pretty girl, capable of hanging off Mick’s arm and gazing adoringly at his manly shoulders. Or something. Not that Ray knows what kind of shoulders Mick Rory has… and if he knows, it’s only because those shoulders are kind of impossible to miss. In the tight spaces of the Waverider, that is, of course.

They’re kinda impossible to miss even now, in the tighter space of the limo, outlined in the finely-tailored suit that looks like it was created to hug Mick’s body (because it was, thanks to the 22ndcentury tech). The cut of the wool shows off how narrow Mick’s waist can seem when he’s not hiding his torso in that god-awful ridiculous firefighter jacket, and Ray has to actively force himself not to look.

The limo stops in front of the main entrance, all stained glass and masterful architecture, and Ray sends a quick prayer to the heavens that this building won’t be burning by the time they’re leaving. With Mick by his side, he can never be too sure.

They walk inside and pass the quick examination of their invitations – Ray glances at Mick and tries to act like he would if they actually were married, but it’s hard to imagine something that’s never happened to him, especially when Mick looks like he’s ready to find a lighter and go to town on the drapes. Ray curls his hand around Mick’s arm, and tells himself it’s only (mainly) to keep the pyro out of trouble as opposed to feeling up the bicep bulging under the fabric. Mick glances at him briefly, but other than that, he does not let on that he even feels Ray’s touch. Ray remembers overhearing Gideon about some burn scarring – maybe Mick does not actually _feel_ his hand. Something about that thought makes Ray’s heart squeeze with sadness, so he tries to push it away and looks around, attempting to locate the woman they were sent to observe.

He spots the well-educated socialite across the room – according to Gideon, she’s in her early forties and does not attempt to mask her age: her hair is caught in a severely simple do, her dress possibly much more conservative than an event like this would permit, but Ray’s not fooled. The AI’s research packet included a rather colorful history of Ms. Burke’s preferred activities in bed, and numerous occasions she has rewarded those who have satisfied her tastes for more than one partner, plus some unabashed voyeurism. Ray shivers and hopes that there will be no need to go to such lengths tonight: but they do have to attract her attention somehow, that’s why they’re here. Ray almost wishes that it could’ve been Snart in his place – but there’s no way he’s going to let anyone on the team think that he’s not doing his best, or that he’s not an asset as valuable as any of them. No. With a determined look, Ray tugs at Mick’s arm and glances at the man: it’s funny how he never noticed they’re of height. Mick always makes himself appear more physically imposing than he actually is – a trait Ray would’ve liked to master but never did.

“May I have this dance, husband?” he asks, a smile curving up his mouth more because of his nerves than because he finds this funny. He doesn’t, not really, but he’s always had the unfortunate habit of smiling the hardest when he’s a quivering mess inside.

“I don’t dance,” Mick scowls at him, his face an affronted grimace as if Ray asked him to strip. It makes Ray blush a little, the thought as well as the indignation, because Mick knew what they were getting into here, so he has no right to protest even the simplest of tasks _now_. Ray wishes, once again, that it were Snart here – Mick listens to him, however reluctantly, acknowledging his authority, his logic, his leadership. Ray… he’s never been that good at leading people who don’t want to be led, people like Mick who are too hot-headed, too wild, too unpredictable. He feels heat pooling under his collar and hopes that he won’t mess up. He can’t – he refuses to be the one who ends up needing some saving, not again. Not with Mick around; the pyro never made fun of Ray for having been carried out of the gulag, but Ray still feels incompetent and judged whenever he feels Mick’s eyes on him all the way from the opposite end of the Waverider’s common area.

  
He turns his eyes to Mick and leans closer, so that the people around them can’t hear what he’s saying. Mick smells warm and a bit like expensive aftershave, and Ray has to swallow before he can get his voice to sound as decisive as he needs it to be.

  
“Yes, you do,” he whispers heatedly, mouth just inches from Mick’s ear. He hopes that it looks like he’s muttering sweet nothings to his husband, but he can’t be sure – he’s never been a great actor, especially not when it came to the matters of heart.

And since when did Mick Rory become a ‘matter of heart’ anyway?!

  
“You do,” Ray repeats furiously, and pushes back all the inappropriate ideas that spring up in his mind when he takes a deep breath of Mick again and feels a huge, hot palm settle lightly over his hip, “if you don’t know how, just let me lead.”

  
Mick’s snort is a brush of warm air over all the sensitive spots on Ray’s neck and he can’t stop the shiver that tingles down his spine.

  
“Not ever, Pretty.”

Ray finds himself dragged to the dance floor and the hand over his hip slides to settle at the small of his back. Normally he would protest that for an event of this magnitude and importance, one would typically keep to some boundaries, such as acceptable personal space between dancing partners – but when his chest brushes Mick’s and his fingers are wrapped tight in the pyro’s callused, solid hand, Ray forgets how to form sentences in any language known to the human race. He barely hears the music as they begin to move; it’s not the best dance he’s ever had, technically speaking, but it’s definitely among the top three most exciting ones. Exciting and terrifying, really, what with his heart hammering in his chest and reaching for the speed of light when he looks at Mick and finds the other man nearly smiling, like he knows something Ray doesn’t. It’s unsettling, but Ray’s brain clearly forgot how to be afraid of Mick Rory, because his eyes drop to the man’s lips (surprisingly full and soft-looking, now that he can study them up close) and refuse to budge.

He’s only vaguely aware when the song changes, and he barely notices Ms. Burke, their target, watching them with apparent interest. All he can truly see is Mick’s face coming closer, oh god, he isn’t- is he- and then Ray’s lips are burning with the briefest of kisses, leaving him yearning and out of balance as Mick whispers:

“Don’t make me do that again.”

Ray doesn’t know if he meant the dance or the kiss, but he sure as hell hopes it’s the former. Ray’s never been much of a waltz aficionado, after all – if, at a more convenient time, they could get back to the kissing, though… that he wouldn’t mind at all.

He takes ten seconds to count out his breaths (not his heartbeats, he can’t focus enough to count that fast) and then forcibly re-focuses his mind on the mission at hand, on the mischievous, flirty glint in the eyes of the woman weaving through the crowd to get to them. Ray’s fingers tighten around Mick’s hand, and he doesn’t even know if they never let go after the dancing or if Mick caught his hand while Ray was busy not hyperventilating, but he’s glad for the support anyway.

He can do this, and he will. And then, he’ll definitely make Mick do some things, preferably ones that won’t have a prescribed distance at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](https://pheuthe.tumblr.com) :)


End file.
